Her recent film “Shwebonta” will be screened at the New York Film Festival in October. It portrays Burma’s (Myanmar) transition from isolation and military rule to global trade. The film was named for a street in Yangon “where sign board builders construct advertisements for the city by hand,” Lackey said.

A still from Meredith Lackey’s “Iron Condor.” (Click on image for larger file.)

Lackey now is working on her thesis, a film that traces the path of a proposed transatlantic fiber optic cable from South America to Africa.

“Ms. Lackey is as much ethnographer, anthropologist and theorist as she is artist. The foundation’s awards program is extremely competitive, but

she is a smart filmmaker,” said Jennifer Reeder, UIC associate professor of moving image.

Lackey received a UIC University Fellowship during the first year of her MFA program and a UIC Chancellor’s Award for “Shwebonta.”